Waiting for Mango? This trick will help you update right now

As you well know by now, the Mango update to Windows Phone is in the process of being rolled out to the world community of WP7 handset owners.

Microsoft and its bevy of carriers are shipping the update to only a sliver of the total userbase today, however, perhaps around 10%. That means that for a great host of individuals, likely including you, the date of one’s Mango upgrade could be more than a week away.

Let us help. Before we do, our standard boilerplate applies: Use of the following trick is your decision. If you brick your device, the onus is on you. If you come crying to us, we will offer our condolences, and nothing else. At the same time, what we are discussing today is not very ‘hot,’ and should likely be safe for most to at least try.

The method could be called the ‘pull the plug system,’ because you are going to be removing your Internet connection at least once, and perhaps twice, to convince Zune into letting you have Mango now, and not later. This, according to the lovely WPCentral is the proper (and tested) set of steps:

Connect your Windows Phone to a PC and launch the Zune software

Click on Phone/Settings/Update. Allow the software to tell you whether an update is available. If so, skip this guide. If not continue to the next step.

Click the update button again, and this time immediately disconnect your computer from the internet (some people have better luck waiting 1-2 seconds). Do this by pulling the Ethernet cable, disabling Wi-Fi, etc.

Wait 30 seconds or so and you should receive a notification that an update is available. This is 7392, the Mango pre-update.

Now reconnect to the internet and continue with the update process through the Zune software.

After 7392 is fully installed, you may receive a notification that another update is available. If so, install Mango now. If not, proceed to the next step.

If the second update isn’t popping up on its own, repeat steps 3-5, causing the 7403 update to appear.

Install 7403, brave reader.

Mango time! At this point, Zune should automatically start installing 7720, Mango. If it doesn’t happen automatically, force it like in previous steps.

People have reported success with the system. We here at TNW have been running Mango for some time, so did not have a handset to field test with. Please sound off in the comments if it works for you. Even if it fails, we want to know. Don’t be shy.